Shortcut to Becoming a Literary Genius

It’s often thought that there are three different types of learning style around today, and these are commonly said to be learning by listening, seeing and by experience (touching or doing). Obviously if you can combine more than one aspect of this way of learning, then whatever the information that a person is trying to learn, will stick to mind a lot better than if – for example – the information was only read, rather than read and then learnt further through experience. The point is, is that the more stimuli that occur during learning, the easier a thing is to learn.

In the classroom, studying from texts and literature is one method of learning (the seeing method), but if you can listen and see, wont that be a lot more beneficial? So in order to aid anyone in need of a better understanding of several classic and modern texts, here is a compilation movie greats (and some maybe not-so-greats) that may further your understanding of some of the literary works of art of our time!

(As a note: it would have been great to include a “doing” learning aspect to help with literature, but generally if you’re not part of a historical reenactment or role-play society, then “doing” is quite hard to achieve!)

Shakespeare

1. Starting out with arguably one of the greatest writers of all time, William Shakespearehas had a great many of his works translated to the silver screen, both in the English language and in many other languages, for almost as long as there has been television to host it. There will also come a time in most of our lives when we have to study a work of Shakespeare in the classroom, so here is a list of some of the more accessible and popular Shakespeare plays, albeit in movie form!
2. The Merchant of Venice: This particular version of The Merchant of Venice is the 2004 movie, starring Al Pacino as Shylock, the Jewish moneylender, and Jeremy Irons as Antonio, the hapless tradesman locked into a brutal deal, as they engage in a battle of wits to see who comes out on top!
3. Romeo and Juliet: This is director Baz Luhrmann’s critically-acclaimed modernization of one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays. With Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danesfilling the title roles, this tale of star-crossed lovers has never been more exciting, nor more brutal than it was here.
4. A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Shakespeare’s summery tale of lovers (and their love) gone awry is brought to life with a stunning cast headed by Kevin Kline and Michelle Pfeiffer. Now with extra donkey ears!
5. Richard III: The Bard’s take on the murderous antics of the would-be successor to the English throne are here rendered in a brutal fashion by acting master Sir Ian McKellen.
6. King Lear: Sir Laurence Olivier plays the titular King Lear in this 1983 cinematic masterpiece. A king plunges his kingdom into turmoil as he hands his lands (and associated powers) over to his two corrupt daughters, whilst neglecting his third, honest daughter.
7. Othello: With veteran actor Laurence Fishburne as the eponymous Othello, a man betrayed by the monstrous Iago, who was merely posing as his friend for his own inscrutable purposes, this is one tale of jealousy and rage that should not be missed!

Classic Fiction

Whilst Shakespeare is an incredibly important mainstay of classic literature, there were many others that came both before and after him, and we’d do our best not to forget those creative geniuses that helped forge the way we perceive the written word today.

8. Leo Tolstoy: A popular author of the late 19th century, Tolstoy is accredited as to having written the book-forms of Anne Karenina – The story of a woman who follows her heart and has an affair with a handsome count, and War and Peace – A tale of love in a time of warfare in Russia during the time when Napoleon’s forces were in control of most of Europe.
9. John Steinbeck: His original work – The Grapes of Wrath – was published in 1939, and was deemed a classic of its era. The film version of this tale of poor farmers moving on to seek their fortune elsewhere, has been brought to life by talented director John Ford, shortly after the book’s publishing (the film was released a year later in 1940).
10. Alexandre Dumas: Here is a French writer known famously for his historical novels, one of which was the world-renowned Three Musketeers book which has since also been made into many films. This particular film version stars Chris O’Donnell as D’Artagnan, a man desperate to join the King’s Musketeers along with the help of his Musketeer friends: Aramis, Athos and Porthos.
11. Mark Twain: Is one of those quintessentially American authors whose name is recognized the world over! His novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has been hailed as the “Great American Novel” and symbolizes the spirit of life in the US. The Disney version of The Adventures of Huck Finn, stars a young Elijah Wood as the rogue-ish hero of the story.
12. Harper Lee: The Pulitzer-Prize winning authoress’ only major work, To Kill a Mockingbirdwas successfully converted to a movie in the 60s, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, the lawyer who agrees to defend a young black man who stands accused of raping a white woman in a racially divided town. Check it out here!

Science Fiction/Fantasy

Even the greatest of minds need a little distraction from the commonplace and the mundane. Hopefully this last list will provide just that, and will also help out if any of the authors below are the topic of any studies!

13. Isaac Asimov: One of the most prolific writers of his time – having written around 500 books – Asimov’s source material is responsible for quite a few Hollywood movies, withBicentennial Man, the Robin Williams-starring story of a robot that longs to become human. The recent Will Smith blockbuster I, Robot was also based on one of Asimov’s stories, and introduced us to the 3 Laws of Robotics.
14. Philip K Dick: He gave us the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was the inspiration for the Harrison Ford-led movie of humans-hunting-robots sci-fi classicBlade Runner, which has recently been released as a Final Cut Edition. The Tom Cruiseblockbuster Minority Report was also based loosely on the Dick novel of the same name.
15. George Orwell: Active during the first half of the 20th century, Orwell gave us the literary great 1984, a tale of paranoia and desperation in a dystopian version of what – at the time of writing – was a bleak future. The year 1984 also heralded a new version of thefilm, which has been seen as essential viewing by critics.
16. Aldous Huxley: Writing at the same time as Orwell, Huxley also had a penchant for the dystopian view of things. His novel Brave New World was set in a future were everything (including citizens) is engineered to be a certain way, nothing is accidental and everything is planned. The movie version even has Star Trek’s Leonard Nimoy as one of the main characters.
17. William Gibson: Whilst being the pioneering SF writer that gave us the term cyberspaceand the fantastic literary masterpiece that inspired the Matrix trilogy: Neuromancer, Gibson has also had works transcribed to the Big Screen in the form of his short storyJohnny Mnemonic, which was made into the Keanu Reeves movie of the same name.